


Skin Deep

by hybridshade (shimyaku)



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Anal Sex, Angst, Challenge Response, Community: samdean_otp, Dubious Consent, Hurt Dean Winchester, M/M, Mythical Beings & Creatures, Portals, Post-Season/Series 07 AU, Purgatory, Rape/Non-con Elements, Sam/Dean Mini-Bang Challenge, Scars, Soul Bond
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-11-05
Updated: 2013-11-05
Packaged: 2017-12-31 16:48:05
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 13,378
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1034006
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shimyaku/pseuds/hybridshade
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After twelve long months, Purgatory finally chews Dean up and spits him back out into the real world. There, he finds Sam still dealing with the aftermath of Dick's death, Cas has gone AWOL, and Dean's acquired some not-so-pleasant Purgatory-borne problems of his own.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Skin Deep

**Author's Note:**

> **A/N:** Written for the [samdean-otp](http://samdean-otp.livejournal.com) Minibang! With art from the wonderful [](http://siennavie.livejournal.com/profile)[](http://siennavie.livejournal.com/)**siennavie**  
>  who has been amazing, patient, an inspiration, etc etc. :D
> 
>  **Warnings:** dubcon/noncon (not Sam/Dean), AU post-season 7, some meddling with canon lore, soul-fisting, hurt!Dean  
>  Also warning for embedded NSFW art.

 

Dean feels the hard earth rush up to meet him.

It's grainy beneath his fingers and it splits when he pushes at it, his hands telling him it should be soft. But it's not. It might as well be concrete, hard and unforgiving. It makes his knees ache and his forearms sting and his whole body just _hurts_.

In that moment everything is suddenly wrong – different. The air tastes strange on his tongue, feels rough on his skin. The breeze feels warm but cool at the same time. All the various smells that assault him are almost overwhelming. It makes him choke and retch with the urge to throw up.

He forces the impulse back down and pries open his eyes, wincing at the brilliant light filtering down from above. He panics when nothing seems to focus, but tries again and manages to steady himself this time, taking in his surroundings. It's all so _bright_ and the colours burn his eyes, the shock of seeing something not grey for once doesn’t immediately register and takes a second to compute. It all looks hyper-real like everything is bouncing out toward him. _Un_ real maybe. Like a distant dream?

With a tired groan Dean pushes back and sits on his heels, working the topsoil between his thumb and forefinger. It smudges his skin with rich brown streaks, emitting the odour of damp earth that he's smelled many times before, and he can't help the crazed smile that slides over his features.

He's back.

Something coils in his belly, prickles at the surface of his skin, and he almost swears he can hear laughter from somewhere far off.

 

He wasn't sure how long it took him to stumble upon a road. But once he did he just picked a direction and started walking, glad for the smooth surface under his feet and not having to worry about any hidden tree roots tripping him up. He walked until the sun went down and then some. Not a single car passed him by, but even if they had he wouldn’t have expected them to pick him up, not with his current appearance anyway.

It’d been a while since he'd seen himself in a mirror, but he had a pretty good idea of what he must look like all the same. He still had his usual five-o’clock shadow thing going on, and his hair hadn’t grown at all, but he was lucky he didn't wear it long because it’d surely look like dreadlocks otherwise - it was gummy and misshapen and probably looked a little like a bird’s nest, complete with twigs and leaves for decoration. His current clothing was miraculously intact, though not all of it was what he'd had on in the beginning. He'd changed his jeans, t-shirt and jacket several times over, stooping to removing the clothing from vamps and shapeshifters he ganked whenever he was lucky enough to run into one roughly his own size. Still, what he was wearing had become threadbare and his jeans and jacket were heavily stained and wearing pretty thin over the knees and elbows. It was barely enough to keep a guy warm on a cool night like that one.

Dean’s skin, while it hadn’t bothered him for ages, suddenly felt tight and itchy. It was no doubt covered in a thick layer of grime, well in need of a wash, and probably looked like he'd fallen in a mud puddle, or maybe been a bit heavy handed with the war paint - which perhaps wasn't so far wrong. It would have to wait though. People could think what they like - not that there was anyone around to see - but he had got places to be, more important shit to do than worrying about onlookers and their sensitivities.

It was well into the night before Dean happened upon some kind of truck stop.

He could almost laugh at the state of his reintroduction to civilisation.

The main building looked little better than an old fishing shack with a tin roof, a couple of rusty nails barely holding it together. Despite that, he could see through the windows that there was at least half a dozen people inside sitting at tables, beers in hand. They were making a fair bit of noise and there was some kind of music playing, but Dean bypasseed the entrance completely - he wasn't there to socialise after all. Around the back he found the car park, several cars and a couple of trucks scattered around the yard. One of them would probably be his ticket out of there, but he needed a destination before he started driving.

A pay phone hung on the outside of the diner, a flickering light bulb providing just enough light for him to find the right numbers on the keypad. He made collect calls to every phone number he could think of, including his own. And he was just about to run out of options when he finally hit jackpot.

“..-llo?”

It took a moment for Dean to remember how to speak. He knew he was about to be hung-up on and so he quickly cleared his throat.

“Sam?”

“Ye-... Wha- _Dean_? …Dean, is that you?”

“Yeah,” he croaked, clearing his throat again. He hadn't exactly had much of a chance for intelligent conversation lately – he was out of practice.

“Oh my god, how did you-? No, wait, it doesn’t matter. Where the hell are you?”

“Uh. Bumfuck Nowhere, that help?”

Dean squinted at the labels on the side of the phone, but they were all either peeled away or too faded to read. He glanced around looking for some kind of indication of where he was, and zeroed in on a lamp-lit sign at the front of the car park.

“There’s a sign sayin’ Lumber Town Rest Stop.”

He could hear the faint tapping of computer keys in the background, and then a brief grunt of annoyance. “Dude, you weren’t kidding when you said Bumfuck Nowhere. Good thing I’m only a couple of hours away. Can you wait there for me?”

Dean mumbled something that sounded like an acknowledgement and hung up the receiver. He wandered over to the edge of the car park, hiding himself away in the shadows of the surrounding trees. He had a ‘couple of hours’ to kill and it made him anxious, though he hated to admit it. He didn't even recall the last time he wasn’t constantly on the move, constantly on the alert - probably not since he was there, like, _before_. It was probably unavoidable that his life would split itself again, getting lumped into 'before' and 'after', just like it had back then after the whole Hell thing. He sat himself down on the patchy grass beneath his feet and tried to calm himself enough to stop his limbs from twitching with energy he shouldn't really have possessed.

Just being there, having a moment to really think, only brought to the forefront just how tired he really was. Everything ached. From his toe nails to the split-ends of his hair. It was bone deep and all the more exhausting for knowing that a hot shower and a nap weren't going to cure it.

He laid down and passed out almost immediately, only to be woken sometime later by a familiar vibration shuddering through the ground. He’d know the sound of that engine anywhere. Dean hauled himself to his feet and hobbled back into the centre of the park, watching as his baby came to a stop and a familiar figure all but tossed himself from the front seat.

Sam greeted him like a little boy lost, wrapping his long arms around Dean’s waist and squeezing tight. He choked a little at the strength in those arms, wanting to push them away and take a rain check until he’s had a chance to wash and put on some clean clothes, but Sam apparently didn't give a crap that he must look and smell like something that pulled itself from a swamp, merely burrowing his overgrown nose deeper into Dean’s shoulder.

“How did you get out of there?” Sam said with a gasp, finally pulling away, “Since I figured out where you were I’ve been going nuts trying to open portals, cast divining spells, fucking _summon_ you, but nothing’s ever worked!”

Dean simply shrugged. “Picked up a few tricks in there I guess.”

He could tell Sam wasn’t having it - that little twist of his lips told Dean all he needed to know. No doubt they were going to have to ‘talk’ later, but thankfully his brother gave him a temporary reprieve.

“You don’t seem hurt or anything? I mean, you look kinda... gross, actually, but you don’t look like you’re on the verge of death, which is always a plus.”

“‘m fine, Sammy. Just need some hot water and a big-ass scrubbing brush and I’ll be good as new.”

Sam nodded, if a bit hesitantly, and he directed Dean into the passenger seat, before seating himself and getting them back on the road. Ten minutes of dense, agitated silence followed, until Sam simply couldn't help himself.

“You know, I even—"

“ _Sam._ Seriously, just... Can y’ lemme get back in my own skin before you start with the interrogation? Please?”

“Sure,” Sam said slowly, turning back to the road.

Dean got himself comfortable against the window - he knew he was going to leave some kind of greasy mark behind on the glass, but he was really too tired to care just then, and that was saying something. So he just let himself drift off again. Sam would let him know whenever they got to where they were going.

 

 

He’s as clean as he's gonna get, having shampooed his hair at least five times and scrubbed his skin red-raw in the shower. He’s fed and watered, and he’s back in the all-too familiar surroundings of an aging roadside motel, but Dean can’t for the life of him get to sleep.

He should really be tired, should be fucking _exhausted_ , but maybe he just forgot to pull the car over at 'fatigue' and instead drove straight on into delirium.

Purgatory will do that to you, though. No sun, no moon, just dank greyness. It fucks with your head. And Dean's starting to see that not being there anymore doesn't necessarily mean he's left it all behind. Those twelve months of effective solitude are going to loom over his head like his own personal raincloud for a while yet, and storms were brewing.

Sam had disappeared over an hour ago, saying he had some things to take care of that he’d tell Dean about later. He’d turned the lights off on his way out, pretty much ordering Dean to get some rest as if he were the big brother in the room, and had driven off into the night, the deep reverberation of the Impala's engine singing up through the shag carpet floor. So now Dean was alone in the near-impenetrable dark. Back on Earth but still with no one to save him, which was just what he feared most.

His breath caught. He could feel the stirrings in his gut, the strain on his body as that secret burden he carried rose to the surface, taking shape.

And it smiled.

“You’ve done so well, Dean… Let’s see if I can't find some way to reward you.”

 

 

“So,” Sam began, crossing his arms over his chest. He looked about the same as far as Dean could tell, though he was a little worn around the edges - the creases slightly deeper around his eyes, the stoop of his back slightly more pronounced. He was clearly tired and probably not sleeping well. Story of their lives.

“I hope now is a good time to talk because I’m not letting you get out of it. I’ve even given you half a day to think up some shitty excuses for you to throw at me first.”

“So nice of you to do that for me. Always thinkin’ of others.”

“Seriously, Dean, cut the crap already. I went down every available avenue to try and open some kind of gate from this side but it was just goddamn impossible. How in the hell did you open one from that side when you didn’t even have any books or tools or just… _anything_?”

It wasn't hard to see that Sam was at the end of his tether. Had he really been working on it that hard? Or was there other stuff going on that Dean didn’t know about? After he’d left the previous night Sam had mentioned that there was something he had to tell Dean about - maybe it was bigger than he’d thought.

“Who said I opened this supposed ‘gate’, anyway?”

“What?” Sam went wide-eyed. “You didn’t? Then who the Hell did! What did you _do_ , Dean?”

Dean held his hands up in surrender. “Hey, what are you accusing me for? It was just a teeny, tiny, insignificant deal with some dude—"

“You cut a fucking _deal_? Seriously! To think that after everything we've been through you'd still do something as stupid as—"

“Whoa, hey! That must've come out wrong or something – it was more of an exchange, okay? I did something for him, he did something for me. End of story. No big deal. Literally.”

Sam planted himself in a chair with a heavy thump, his hands coming up to scrunch in his hair. Dean watched the arch of his back expand and contract as he took several deep breaths. He recognised the flannel shirt Sam was wearing, a blue-grey-brown check, but it was looking a lot less blue and a lot more grey than it used to.

“Right. Well, if you say it’s okay, then it’s okay. I'm actually going to back off and give you the benefit of the doubt. But this ‘dude’… Dean, I need you to tell me how he got you back here. Did he, like, cast a spell or...?”

“No, he just directed me to a particular spot, no magic or fancy incantations required. There was this tunnel-looking thing, kinda blue and swirly lookin'. He called it a ‘rip’, and it just... shot me into a forest somewhere, a few hours walk from where you picked me up.”

He could see something turning over in Sam’s mind prompted by what he’d just said – pieces of the puzzle were slotting into place. He knew then with absolute certainty that there was something else going on, and seemingly this Purgatory-born tunnel had something to do with it.

“I mentioned that there was something I needed to tell you about, right? Well, it's confession time. Part of it is that I’ve found out a lot about these so-called 'rips' lately. Mainly because there’s one not far from here.”

Dean blinked, trying to wrap his head around the implications of that particular statement.

“What do you mean? That there's… there’s more than one of these things?”

“I’m wondering suddenly," Sam said, pulling his hands down over his face, "If maybe there’s a whole _heap_ more and we just don’t know about them yet. But yeah, there’s one in another forest pretty close by. As far as I can tell it popped up around the time we killed Dick and you disappeared."

Dean's expression dropped. He could see where this was heading and he didn't like it one bit. "That sounds like a pretty crazy coincidence."

"But we know better than that. The Leviathan was physically the biggest big bad we've ever dealt with, right? At the time we killed it, there were literally hundreds of bits of it all over the country. I'm thinking that sending it back to the cesspit it came from must've had some more severe ramifications than we'd planned for."

"These 'rips', you mean. As in, wherever the little Dicks were at the time we took down big Dick—"

"Booting them back into Purgatory has somehow caused a trans-dimensional anomaly. And ever since, this rip that's nearby has been spitting out monsters I’ve never seen or heard of before. Like the Leviathan all over again.”

“And the monsters?”

“Have, _so far_ , thankfully proven slightly easier to kill than Dick. There’s a few hunters that've gathered around here now. It's the only rip we know of that's spitting out monsters, so I'm thinking it must be bigger or more stable than the others or something. Of course, that's not to say that there may not be other ones out there leaking Purgatory scum… Anyway, we've been trying to get at the things before they can get too far from the rip, but there's only so much we can do, y'know? I mean, even if you manage to kill just one, there might already be another on the loose. It's been exhausting. I haven't stopped for months.”

“You make it sound as if... Wait, Sam, how long was I gone?”

“About a year?” Sam jolted when the realisation suddenly occurred to him. “Why? How long was it for you?”

“It might have been a year." Dean sat back and thought about it for a minute. His watch had stopped as soon as he'd gotten to Purgatory, and since there'd been no way of distinguishing one day from the next, there was just no way to know for sure. "Didn’t feel quite that long but it was hard to tell. There was no day or night, nothing grew, even my fuckin hair didn’t grow. It’s like everything was in some kind of stasis. It was weird.”

“So, clearly you saw no evidence of any rips other than the one that brought you back here.”

“Nope. Nothin’. But then again, Purgatory... it was endless. Like some kind of infinite loop, or a maze maybe. Everything looked the same. The only thing to break the monotony was all the monsters. Like you said, weird stuff we’ve never seen before. Powers we’ve never encountered. Thankfully those ones were few and far between. Most of the time it was just vamps and weres and whatever. Easy killings. It was kinda nice in a way.”

“Nice? You’re probably the only person ever in existence to call a place like that 'nice'.”

“Yeah, well." Dean slapped his hands down on his thighs and heaved himself upright. "We gonna go take care of these dimension-jumping bastards or what?”

Sam peered at him inquisitively. “You sure you’re up for that? You were pretty out of it last night. You still look exhausted _now_.”

“I’ve been in a supernatural war zone, and pretty much all by my lonesome for something like a year. Give a guy a break. It'll be nice to get some action with a proper audience for a change.”

Sighing, Sam got to his feet. "Suddenly it's like you never left."

 

 

Sam had insisted on driving, and it took him threatening to not give Dean accurate directions before he finally relented, huffing with annoyance as he slumped into the passenger seat. Thankfully the drive was all of ten minutes and then they were pulling the Impala in next to a cabin in the middle of nowhere. There were at least two other cars parked among the trees nearby – both of them the sort of trucks one might expect a hunter to own.

Ignoring the bone-weary ache of his limbs, Dean jumped from the car and moved to open the trunk, taking in the varied array of weapons they'd amassed over the years. He was glad to see they all appeared to have been taken care of, and he looked up as his brother joined him.

"Weapon of choice?"

Sam raised an eyebrow. "Shouldn't I be asking you that?"

"Well, I-… yeah, actually, you should be," Dean said, correcting himself, and he reached down to grab a thick-bladed scimitar that he hadn't touched in years. "So long as everything works the same way it did in Purgatory, a good, clean beheading is usually the best way to go."

"Duly noted."

Dean did a double check to make sure his gun was still securely tucked into the back of his jeans before stepping back to let Sam make his choice. He'd found out pretty early on that guns were worth jack-all in Purgatory, but even so, it wasn't as if he was just going to get rid of his favourite Colt for no good reason. Rather, he'd kept it with him at all times, letting the weight of it ground him. It had served as a reminder of why he had to keep fighting and find a way out – get back to the real world and what was waiting for him there. And now suddenly he _was_ there, and he was still trying to wrap his head around the whole thing. Yes, he'd achieved his goal, but he was beginning to realise that shaking off the effects or Purgatory wasn't going to be as easy as changing clothes and getting back on the road.

He knows, way down deep, that he could so easily have lost himself there. Like some kind of twisted Stockholm syndrome, he'd eventually found a perverse enjoyment in the primeval life he'd been forced to adopt to keep himself fed, watered and _breathing_. Just like how his hair hadn't grown, he'd found that he hadn't had to eat as often as normal and the urge to sleep would leave him be for several 'days' at a time, though sometimes he'd do it anyway just for some semblance of routine. Otherwise, his existence was nothing more than travelling and fighting, travelling and fighting. It had felt purifying in some round-about way. Primitive, even. He'd felt connected, as if he lived for a singular purpose, his humanity regressing to a more instinctive state. In the end the black-and-white of Purgatory had proven to be a comfort – kill or be killed, no thought or moral quandaries required.

The real world didn't work like that. He was going to have to keep reminding himself of that fact.

"…ean? Dean, are you listen—?"

He reacted. Pivoting on his heel, arm raised.

"Whoa! Dude! What the hell! It's just me, okay?"

Blinking slowly, Dean lowered his weapon from where he'd had it aimed at Sam's chest. He hadn't meant to do that.

"Sorry."

"Right," Sam let go an unsteady breath, finally picking up a weapon from the trunk – something halfway between a sickle and a scythe. "You positive you're up for this? I can take you back to—"

"No. 'M fine," Dean said with a grunt, "Let's get this done. Time to screw over some beasties' vacation plans."

He let Sam lead the way, taking them past the cabin – where he swore he could feel eyes on him, despite the lack of faces in the windows – and down a beaten track through the trees. They came to a clearing less than a quarter-mile down, where they were greeted by the sight of the rip, patches of red and black stained grass and fire-singed tree trunks, and three well-armed hunters – their expressions almost comically suspicious.

"Didn't tell us y'were bringin' company, Sam."

The man who'd spoken took a step forward, giving Dean the stink-eye. He looked in his forties, his fair hair greying at the temples, and he was dressed not much different from how Sam and Dean were. The couple standing several paces behind him were clearly much younger – probably in their early thirties – and their clothing echoed that. In fact, Dean decided they looked like they'd stepped out of some comic book movie, all trussed up in leather, leather, leather, and skin-tight shirts.

"Cam, this is my brother Dean. Dean, this is Cam, Vera and Emil. Cam is an old acquaintance of Bobby's."

Dean turned to his brother, leaning in close.

"The kooky kids over there, they know this isn't, like, the set of Blade or Underworld or something, right?"

"Yeah, they know," Sam smirked, "They grew up hunting in Europe. Apparently that's how they do things over there. They're actually pretty good, and Vera has psychic tendencies."

"You sure 'psychic' is the right word?"

Cam cleared his throat audibly, drawing their attention. "Thought you said your brother was lost in—"

"He was," Sam cut in, "He got back yesterday. Thrown back through a rip."

All three of the other hunters stared at them, wide-eyed and disbelieving.

"I'd theorised there could be more rips, right? Well, now we know for sure. I'm thinking that some of them only go one way, though."

"That's impossible," Emil said, some lingering semblance of an accent colouring his words, "For a human to survive that long in Purgatory? Surely he's human no longer."

"Hey, buddy, I think I damn well know—"

"He's _fine_ ," Sam said flatly, pressing his palm against Dean's chest to hold him back, "Or, as fine as he can be. He's come to help. It's likely he's fought a lot of these creatures before, including the ones we haven't."

Dean watched as all three hunters nodded their agreement, though it wasn't difficult to see that their suspicion of him hadn't abated even the smallest bit. He didn't blame them, though. Rather, he'd probably only think less of them if their attitudes were swayed so easily. Likely if he were in their position he'd already be in his own face shoving salt water down his own throat, just to see for himself. As a hunter you could never be too careful. He and Sam had learned that the hard way, for sure.

Just then, a strange sensation pulled at his chest, urging Dean around to face the rip.

"What's the matter?"

"I think something's coming."

Sam frowned. "You sure?"

"Nah, just a feeling."

He heard Sam shout a warning to the others, but Dean was already stalking towards the rip, weapon at the ready. It looked similar to the one that had spat him back to Earth – a large, misshapen circle, sort of pearlescent blue-silver that warped and rippled like the surface of the ocean. The distant hum that had first caught his attention was drawing closer, and _fast_. It was as good as footsteps creeping through the forest in search of prey – the only sort of music his ears had been privy to for the past twelve-or-so months.

Suddenly there was a crack like lightning, and a humanoid figure tumbled through from the other side.

Dean assumed a fighting stance, wanting the creature to lay eyes on him first. He wanted to see…

" _You_ ," the thing hissed, fangs dropping down into its mouth – a vampire then.

Dean grinned. "I always wanted to be famous."

It leapt at him, and Dean took one swipe with his blade, relieving the vamp of its head. "Look better without it," he mumbled to himself.

Stooping down he wiped the bloodied blade edge on the ratty clothes it wore, before turning back to his brother and the other hunters. They all stared at him as if he'd grown a second head.

"What?" he growled, pointing to the older dude – Cam, or whatever it was. "You got a fire pit or something? Where you buryin' the corpses?"

"Uh, over there, man."

The guy made no move to help, so Dean laid down his scimitar and hoisted the dead weight of the vamp over his shoulder in a fireman's carry, grabbing the head with his free hand. He headed over to where Cam had indicated and found a shallow pit of dying embers. In laying the former vamp down atop them the fire quickly roared back to life, engulfing the body in flame. That was one thing vamps had going for them – easy clean up.

Dean had just picked his blade back up again when he felt the same buzzing in his chest, the same pull toward the rip.

His next kill was already on its way. He could practically taste it.

 

 

"Sam?"

Sam turned away from his brother, now taking down his third consecutive creature – a Rugaru of all things – to find that Vera had come up beside him.

"You ought to tell him."

"About?"

"About that man you called an angel. A time approaches where his skills will be required."

Sam blinked. That was going to be interesting conversation. And he had been meaning to bring it up with Dean, but he'd only just gotten back. His brother's needs took priority just at that point. Mention of Castiel would surely only distract him.

"Tell me…" Vera shifted uncomfortably, "Do you know if Dean is truly alright?"

He couldn't help it. Sam laughed until there were tears in his eyes.

"Sometimes I wonder if there was _ever_ a time when he was alright, so you're gonna have to be a little more specific. Where we come from 'alright' is a relative term."

She pursed her lips, clearly not amused. "I mean, is he not changed? Not infected with anything?"

"Not that I could tell. We did the usual tests – salt, blood, silver. Why, what have you seen?"

"I see a great darkness within him."

Sam snorted. Again, he couldn't help it. Vera only glared at him harder.

"I sometimes forget that you didn't grow up hunting 'round here and don't already know our story. Look, Dean spent forty years in Hell, now a year in Purgatory, he's in some way responsible for a crapload of deaths, shit, he even _was_ Death for a day. I'd be more worried if there _wasn't_ a great darkness in him."

"Yes but this… It's old. And it hungers. It's devouring him more with every day."

"Right, well. I guess I'll keep a closer eye on him."

 

 

Sam had somehow wrangled his way back into the driver's seat, leaving Dean stuck with shotgun as they headed back to the motel.

He'd barely left the rip site the entire day but for lunch and to take a piss, and Sam had literally had to pry him away from the never-ending onslaught of Purgatory escapees. He had to wonder whether killing them even made any difference – did they die once and for all, or did the fact that they'd been killed on Earth just mean that they went straight back to Purgatory for Round Two? Regardless, they were trespassing on human turf, which meant they needed to be dealt with one way or another, and that was something Dean could deal with. In a way it was his fault, after all – he'd been the one to stick it to Big Dick. Sure, he'd had no other choice, but it was still a niggling thought in the back of his mind, one that drove him to not want to put down his sword for anything.

Once the sun had gone down several more hunters had arrived to take the night shift. A couple of their names even sounded familiar, though whether he'd heard them from Bobby or back in his father's time he couldn't recall. Again, they'd all been suspicious of Dean, but Sam had plied him away with promises of greasy Chinese and prawn crackers, so he hadn't gotten to see the look on their faces when they heard the deets of his miraculous return.

The chow mein had been nothing short of divine, but even barely ten minutes down the road it already felt like so long ago. So many things were stirring his mind, and he felt restless in a way he couldn't explain. Despite the ease with which he'd hacked his way through all the beasties back at the rip, his skin still felt too tight for his body, his legs were twitchy, and he was hungry in a way he knew food wouldn't satisfy.

He was gonna go fucking mental if it kept up – the fight was the only thing that seemed to calm him, centre him, but there was no way in Hell his brother was going to let him repeat today's events all day every day. Not to mention that they were going to have to start looking into a way to close off the rips permanently, if Sam hadn't already started doing so.

Before he knew it the Impala had pulled into the parking lot and come to a stop. It was as they were walking back to their room, Dean just a short ways behind, that he decided to kill several birds with one stone. Sam unlocked the door and reached in to flick the light switch, but Dean quickly grabbed his wrist and held him back.

"Dean—?"

"Leave it off."

"Why-… Oh. What—"

Dean shut him up by mashing their lips together, curling a hand around the back of Sam's neck to draw him in close. It had been a while since they'd kissed – since they'd done _anything_ intimate, really – but like always, nothing about Sam ever stopped being familiar. It was like coming home.

The taste of him was a comfort, warming his palate for more, but eventually they had to come up for air. Sam found himself pressed against the wall, Dean standing between his legs, both of their chests expanding with rapid breaths.

"Where'd this come from all of a sudden?"

"Can't a guy get a little lovin'? That too much to ask?"

"No, but… I thought we made a mutual decision not to—"

"Yeah, well, I changed my mind. Hope it's not a problem, princess."

Dean pouted and looked away. And then Sam chuckled.

"Dude, something funny?"

"Yeah, actually. I was talking to Vera earlier and I made some comment about keeping a closer eye on you, but this isn't exactly what I had in mind."

"…You talk to her about me?"

"A little. Her mild psychic-ness gives her interesting perspectives on things, y'know? Actually, she…" Then it was Sam's turn to look away, fidgeting awkwardly for a moment. "She told me I needed to tell you about Cas."

"W-what?" Dean choked, "What about Cas? Where is he? He's okay, right?"

"He's fine… so far as I know."

Dean glared at his brother. A simple 'fine' wasn't good enough. "You better start talkin', Sammy, or—"

"Look, he got yanked into Purgatory the same way you did, alright! The rip we've been guarding? Cas was the first thing to come out of it. And somehow he's back to normal - powers and all."

Pausing, Dean let that sink in for a moment. Apparently when he, Cas and Dick had been dumped there in Limbo, they hadn't landed anywhere near each other. He'd known the Leviathan had stalked him for some time, he'd felt the weird prickling on the back of his neck and known that its eyes were on him, but not once had it ever attacked him. And now he knew why.

"It was after him," he muttered under his breath.

"What?"

Dean looked up at his brother. "The Leviathan didn't approach me even once while I was there, even though I could sense it nearby. And now I know that it was looking for Cas. It stalked me 'cause it probably thought I'd eventually find him or that he'd find me. So, it's good he got out. Otherwise he'd've ended up as Angel Chow, no two ways about it."

"Cas found me after he got back. He was the one to show me where the rip was," Sam said, heaving a weary sigh, "He'd only been gone a couple of days. He told me that Purgatory had somehow pulled him toward the rip like a super magnet, like it wanted him gone."

"Guess it likes Angels bein' in there even less than humans. What happened then? Why didn't he stick around to help?"

Sam chewed his lip. "There was something funky going on with his powers. He wouldn't tell me any more than that. And then he left and I haven't seen him since."

"…Fuck."

The room might have been in near complete darkness, but Dean still knew exactly where his brother's chest was, and he let his head drop down against it. So much was screwed up in their world. Sam's own strength was already stretched thin, Cas was AWOL and God knows what was up with his powers, there were rips of unknown quantity that needed to be closed up soon-as, yet there was little to no lore on the subject… And as for himself? 'Fucked' didn't even begin to cover it.

"Sorry I ruined the mood."

Dean sighed, but couldn't help the smile that eventually slipped onto his face. At least he had Sammy. The world could go to Hell, but as long as Sam was there he'd be able to get by. Straightening up again he stepped in closer to the wall, closer to Sam, and pushed their bodies together. A few minutes had passed but not enough that he'd gone completely soft again, and he let Sam feel that his interest hadn't fully died out.

"Wouldn't say that exactly…"

Sam gasped, rolling his hips in response. "You still wanna…?"

"C'mere."

Tugging them back toward his bed, Dean let himself fall back on the mattress, Sam crawling atop him. The only light in the room was that of the motel's neon sign from outside, filtering in through the curtained window. It shed an eerie glow over the side of Sam's face, but when he ducked down to kiss him again, it was the last thing on his mind. It didn't take long for things to get heated, and both of them fumbled in the dark to peel their clothes off. A button came loose here, and a boot went flying there, but soon Dean felt the glorious slide of skin-on-skin and he groaned loud with desperation.

"Just tell me one thing," Sam whispered, hovering a mere inch from his face, "Why this? Why now?"

Raising a hand, Dean felt it connect to his brother's arm and he curled his fingers into the thick muscle of his bicep, hard enough to bruise. While still a struggle, it was easier to find truth there in the darkness.

"Need it, Sammy… Purgatory fucked me up good. Changed me." He expelled the breath he'd been holding. "It was so goddamn lonely, man. Wanted you there with me sometimes, at my back like always. But better that you weren't… And now? Don't wanna sleep alone anymore. Wanna know you're there."

"Not goin' anywhere, Dean."

Sam caught his lips again before he could respond, sliding them both further onto the bed and caging Dean in with his limbs. He would never admit it, but he kinda liked that his little brother had grown into this great, hulking beast of a man. The one and only guy bigger than himself that he would ever allow to get the better of him. And he let Sam have at it willingly.

Hands and tongues were everywhere, each of them mapping the other out like they'd forgotten what they looked like. Sam began making a mess of his neck, covering it with licks and bites and sucking the skin between his teeth, making doubly sure that there would be lingering evidence for everyone to see. Eventually Dean grunted in irritation over the lack of friction, and he kicked his legs up from where they were trapped between Sam's, angling his hips just right so their dicks rubbed together teasingly.

"Shit, Dean, that's—"

"You gonna fuck me yet, Sammy? 'Cause I'm losing patience over here."

Sam tried to bite back his laughter but Dean caught on to it regardless, pinching Sam's nipple in retaliation. He jumped back with a yelp and Dean got a hefty slap for his trouble, but missed getting his own in as Sam stumbled off the mattress and over to the other bed, rummaging through his bag by feel until he found what he was after. He crawled back atop the sheets with purpose this time, wrapping his arms around Dean's waist and then sliding his hands down over his thighs, drawing them up so he could wrap them over Sam's hips.

Dean was just getting comfortable, reading for the fucking part to begin, when Sam stopped, body tense.

"Dean, what's that?"

Instantly he became keenly aware of Sam's hands on him. Sam's hands that were gripping on to his thighs. Digging into the damaged flesh that he'd almost forgotten about.

"Sam—"

"You're scarred there. You weren't before. I would've noticed."

Dean grit his teeth. "It's nothing—"

"It's not fucking nothing! It's bigger than my fucking hand! What the hell kind of—"

He grabbed Sam's wrists before he made it as far as the bedside lamp, using all his strength to keep Sam right where he was. There were… _things_ Sam didn't know yet, things that he couldn't hide if there was light with which to expose him. But Sam wasn't going to let it go without good reason.

"You think I managed to survive in there without getting damaged along the way?"

"I… No, but…" Sam's voice shook.

"I got slashed up real good, okay?" Dean said, albeit reluctantly, "But I handled it. It nearly fucking killed me, but I'm here, aren't I? So. You can touch, but… I don't want you lookin' at it yet. Please."

Sam's breathing was shallow and Dean caught the slight movement of his head as he nodded. Then he felt the palm still gripping his right leg start to move, Sam's fingertips deliberately tracing the intricate edges of scar tissue until he was satisfied. And Dean forced down his own protests. He knew what his brother was like, knew that he needed the reassurance. Dean could relate.

"God, Dean."

"No God here, Sam. Never was. Just a dude who needs a little action to lift his spirits."

Sam swallowed audibly, his words strained. "Yeah, I can do that."

From then on there was no further wasting of time. Retrieving the tube of KY, Sam slicked his fingers and set about stretching Dean out – slipping two, then three gelled fingers through the tight muscle of his hole. He prepared Dean quickly and efficiently, adding more gel and smoothing it around until he found Dean's prostate, causing him to jerk in surprise.

Neither of them said anything as Sam then lubed his own cock and used his hands to line himself up, pressing himself inside. Dean hummed with pleasure at the sudden stretch followed by the slow burn as Sam kept moving until he bottomed out. There was a short pause as Sam calmed himself, and he slipped his hands around to Dean's lower back, using his strength to lift Dean's hips and hold him up at an angle as he started to move.

Sam's pace was punishing. Considering all their pent up irritation and desperation, Dean was hardly surprised. With each thrust Sam pulled him down harder onto his dick, and while Dean knew he'd be paying for it in the morning, at the present it was more than worth it just to feel Sam so deep inside he could almost taste it. Sam was both thick and long – proportionate – and even as the moments passed the throbbing burn of his ass being forced open never abated. But still, Dean loved it. Loved the bruising ache of it as Sam pounded away, his balls slapping against him in time.

Reaching down Dean grabbed his own dick and started to jerk himself off. He could feel Sam getting close as his rhythm started to stutter, and he raced toward the finish with him, thriving on the pain as he squeezed his fist tight.

Dean was the first to fall. Ass clenching down hard and pearly white spilling onto his stomach. Almost immediately Sam lost his grip and dropped heavily on top of him, his hips still rutting erratically until his body pulled taut, releasing deep inside Dean, filling him to the brim. Teeth sank sharp into Dean's shoulder and he savoured the sting of the bite, letting it blur the edges of pleasure, and he wrapped his arms around Sam, holding him still.

They fell asleep to the sweet scent of sweat and come, under cover of darkness.

 

Dean was slow to wake, lethargic with the weight of a good night's sleep – the kind he hadn't had for months.

He yawned, grimacing at the something-curled-up-and-died grossness in his mouth, and pried his eyes open. Sam's sleeping face was the first thing he saw, lips slightly parted and cheek smooshed in the pillow. He still looked haggard, truth be told, his skin just slightly off-colour with bruised smudges under his eyes. After last night Dean would've thought he'd sleep like a log, but apparently there were still too many worries swimming around in that oversized brain of his to keep him from being truly rested.

About to turn himself over onto his back, Dean stopped immediately once he realised Sam's arm was slung over his waist, only to tense up in horror. He'd been sleeping on his stomach like he often did, and the clock radio on the bedside table told him it was well into the morning, meaning the sun had been streaming in through the curtains for hours already, lighting up the room.

But Sam seemed dead to the world and the covers were still pulled up to their chests, which meant neither of them had been awake or restless during the night.

Which meant Sam hadn't seen.

Dean let go a shaky breath and stealthily extracted himself from under Sam's arm. He grabbed a change of clothes and headed to the shower, stopping for a moment in front of the mirror. He almost couldn't bring himself to look, just in case, but once he did… there it was, as he expected it to be. The Mahr. Stark lines stood out against his pale skin, falling down the slope of his backbone. It pulsed a little, almost like a very faint second heart beat, and then faded back into nothingness again. Quiet, lying in wait, and patient to the point of madness.

He washed and dressed, taking his time for once, and returned to the room only to find Sam just as he'd left him. Dean prodded him in the shoulder, just to see how deep he was under, and came to the conclusion he was probably going to have to dump an ice bucket on him to bring him back to the waking world. He gave it a few more minutes though, and found that a couple of good hard shoves did the trick.

"…uh?"

"Sammy, you feelin' okay?"

"Jerk, lemme sleep."

"Yeah, fine. Call me later."

Dean would get himself to the rip site. Finally he had a chance to take Baby for a spin.

Another two days passed, and somehow they'd managed to swap places again.

The previous day Dean had gone to the rip site on his own, and spent the daylight hours cutting down monsters like it was nothing more than target practice. Sam had still been weary and off balance when he'd returned with dinner, and they'd turned in early, forgoing any further 'escapades', though not for lack of trying. While he'd tried to initiate something, Sam had been simply too out of it, so Dean had relented and not pushed the matter.

Then _that_ morning, Sam had been out of bed at the crack of dawn, ready and raring to go. And instead Dean had been the one to drag himself up with great effort, stumbling over his own feet several times before they even left the motel. Sam had tried to convince him to stay, that he'd been overdoing it and it was okay to take a day off, but naturally he'd insisted they go about things 'as normal', heading back out to the rip site regardless of his current state.

As it happened, he'd barely been able to keep his weapon in his own hand. It had felt like a lead weight, threatening to pull his arm from its socket, and it reminded him of times back in Purgatory when he'd gone too many days without eating or sleeping and hadn't been able to keep his strength up. It had nearly gotten Dean killed several times over, but back here in the real world, with other hunters and Sam standing at his back, he'd been pulled away from the fight before he'd even had a chance to take a swing.

So there he was back at the motel again, Sam having dropped him off during a lull between monsters and telling him to take it easy, that he'd be back later on with dinner. And he couldn't argue with that. Mostly because his head was too filled with molasses to come up with the right words for it. So he fumbled with the key, eventually getting it into the lock and letting himself back into their room.

The sudden pull on his stomach had Dean tripping over his own two feet yet again and face-planting on Sam's bed, the springs squealing under his weight. Groaning, he rolled onto his back and lifted his shirt, glaring down at the coloured image currently writhing around on the skin of his stomach – it must have gotten sick of hanging out on his back. He'd watched it happen dozens of times before, yet it still didn't feel real, like it was something out of a fantasy movie. Usually the tattoo – for lack of a better word – was located somewhere around the base of his spine, but just then there were two hands and the whip-like tip of a tail coiling about his navel, squirming about as the creature detached from his body.

He could feel the weight of its efforts as it all but threw itself back into being, and Dean sank into the mattress beneath him with a pained groan. Each time the Mahr emerged into the real world again, it was as though a little something more had been ripped away from his core. He'd known since the start that that couldn't be a good sign, and he knew he got fucked over in agreeing to the whole deal business, but he was still alive, right? There was still a chance he could be rid of this thing and live to tell the tale – just preferably not to his brother.

"Hello Dean."

The creature was fully formed and it peered down at him from above, its eyes like shiny red marbles, skittering around in their sockets with glee. Even its horns looked as if they were smiling somehow.

"You're, uh, popping up pretty often these days," Dean croaked.

"How could I not when the air's so sweet?" It licked at the empty space around it, and its nostrils flared as it took a deep breath in. “There’s just so must to taste up here, I can smell the spice of it all around. It would be such a shame to have gone to all that trouble to get here, only to hold myself back.”

Dean shook his head in denial, but couldn't bring himself to speak. That wasn’t the agreement.

“I know what we agreed,” the creature said, acknowledging Dean’s thought, “But it’s like taking a starving man to an all-you-can-eat buffet and expecting him to sit by the wayside and snack on peanuts. Don’t get me wrong, Dean, you’re about as tasty a morsel as I ever did eat. But some days you want chicken, some days you want beef, then every now and then you want a fresh-baked cherry pie and nothing else will suffice.”

“But you said--”

“You know who I think is really tasty?” The creature cut Dean off, its voice sharp and resounding like metal on metal. It made use of the subsequent silence by edging up onto the bed and straddling Dean's hips, wriggling around as it got comfortable. “Your not-so-little brother. Yes, I think he would be an extremely juicy one to sink my teeth into - second only to you, of course. Even looking at him, I see the pain in his eyes, the delicious aching of his soul...”

Dean hissed through his teeth. The creature was heavy where it sat atop him, like a sack of stones, and it made it hard to breathe. “You lying bastard! You said you wouldn't touch him!”

"Oh, come now, Dean," the Mahr said with a smug grin, "I laid neither hand nor tooth on him. You're the one that did that. _You're_ the one that let him inside you. Let him fuck you deep with that big dick of his. It was all so easy in the end, just to take a little nibble—"

"You keep your greasy mitts of him, you hear me!"

“Hush now, Dean. Wouldn't want the neighbours to come knocking, would you?”

It was so easy for the beast to hold him down, and he seethed inside. Deep down he’d known since the moment he’d agreed that he would live to regret his actions, but never had he wanted to kick his own ass more than he did right then – he'd been pestered enough in the past about saying 'yes', so there was really no excuse, was there? Back in Purgatory though, he’d agreed to the creature’s terms out of pure fear – a feeling that he was far from well acquainted with. He had been mortally wounded by yet another of Eve’s creations that he’d never before laid eyes on, and the poison that had been introduced into his blood through the wound had caused both complete paralysis and the most immense pain he’d experienced in recent memory.

He’d been scared enough of dying alone there in that barren, empty wasteland, but to come back to consciousness to the sight of this _thing_ leaning over him, touching his skin like he owned it, and licking at Dean’s wounds... The image still haunted him. And then it had spoken to him, lured him into its trap with careful words and the promise of returning to his own world. Really, when he'd been hovering on the precipice of an uncertain death, how could he have refused? And still he couldn't help but hate himself for it.

He’d been weak. And he hadn’t yet recovered his rightful strength. Maybe he never would – perhaps he'd been deceived even more than he knew.

Dean remembered vividly how the creature had nibbled along the edges of his wound, but so long as its hands had been touching him, what should have had him howling in pain had felt like nothing more than a tickle. It had sucked the poison from his blood with its snake-like tongue, cleansing him, and then most surprisingly of all, it had removed his clothes entirely. He’d barely been able to get the words out to ask what it was doing, but the creature had understood his concerns and told him that they were just going to confirm the agreement – like shaking hands, but a little more involved. It had known the way out of Purgatory, it had said, but only a human body would be able to cross the threshold, so it was just going to have to borrow his for a little while.

In that moment, Dean would have fought it if he could, but his body had betrayed him utterly. The creature had manhandled him into position, then exposed its erect cock and thrust up into him without preparation, pounding away until it had had its fill. All the other pains that still lingered had clouded the aching of Dean's ass, but he’d still felt the scorching burn when the thing had come inside him. Hot liquid had sloshed around his insides, completely at odds with the almost cold, leathery touch of the creature's limbs against his body.

The beast had laughed then. That should have been the biggest clue of all, even if it had been too late by then to change his mind. It had held Dean close, still snickering to itself, and told him how great they were going to be together. It would give Dean strength, and Dean would give the creature life.

The first time it had absorbed itself into his body, he’d nearly stabbed himself to try and get the thing out of him. But he found he couldn’t grab it, could only grab himself, and still he could feel it crawling around beneath the topmost layers of his skin, making all his hair stand on end, as if it knew. Once the creature had settled itself somewhere in the region of his lower back, it had bloomed into shapes of infinite colour, outlined with intricate lines of black. It looked like something he’d seen in one of his Busty Asian Beauty videos, where the Beauty had been property of the Japanese Yakuza and all the gangsters had arrived to gangbang her.

Dean felt liked he’d been pretty well fucked, himself.

And now there they were, still embedded in their ‘deal’. Now free of Purgatory but still connected on the deepest level, with Dean damned to carry the beast around so long as he wanted to remain alive. What was going to happen when he couldn’t take it anymore? Would he have found a loophole by then? What if the creature went rogue and they had to stop it? Could he just kill himself like that? And what sort of stupid lengths would Sam go to to haul him back to the land of the living once again. God only knew.

Pssh, God…

“Please, just... I brought you back here, like I said. And you can keep eating away at me as much as you like, which you seemed so content to do back _there_. But please don’t touch my brother, and don’t go after anyone else either. You’re supposed to live off of me only. That's what you said.”

“Ah, well, since you begged so nicely.”

The creature shrouded itself in its human ‘veil’, making it look as though Sam’s doppelganger were suddenly sitting at the bedside. Sure, it liked to fuck with Dean’s head at any given chance, but this was the first time the creature had appeared in the guise of someone he knew. Usually it was just the false image of some random dark-haired, hollow-eyed male, just playing with the soft touches of skin to try and psyche Dean out.

Sometimes it worked, too.

Sometimes it gave him a moment of pause, aching for want of a human touch. But then the moment would pass and Dean would see it for what it really was. A wolf in disguise.

He squeezed his eyes shut as the Mahr shuffled backward and divested him of his jeans and boxers. It knocked his legs apart and stuck its long fingers into his hole without preamble, nothing but a hasty coating of its saliva easing the way. The digits wiggled around – a half-hearted attempt to loosen him up – and then they were withdrawn, the creature quickly lining itself up for the main event.

Dean wasn't sure how he should feel about the mirror image of his brother that was currently pressing the blunt head of its cock into his ass, but he was pretty sure he should have been freaking out more than he was. On previous occasions when the creature had bothered putting on a human face, he'd been able to simply ignore the details of its features by staring into the distance and pretending it was like any of the other random fucks he'd experienced – a handsome face that he'd never have to see again. Even the thick shaft of flesh stretching out his hole felt human enough, though he knew from experience that the creature's actual cock was far from it – yet another little trick of the Mahr's design for Dean's own benefit, if he dared to call it such a thing.

When the Mahr was finally buried to the hilt, it seemed to be panting strangely in a way that Dean had never seen it do before. He couldn't quite bring himself to look away from the sight of not-Sam's heaving chest, and then suddenly it was the creature buried inside of him, and then Sam again – a lightning-quick flicker that Dean wondered if he imagined. He blinked and shook his head clear, but it was still Sam's not-quite face hovering above him, his not-quite hips pulling back and then slamming forward into Dean's ass again.

"Oh, yes, Dean," the creature groaned, rich and resonating – and it wasn't anything like the sounds Sam made, "There's no words to describe how delicious you are. No one's ever sustained me like you do. Your pain is like the finest wine, served in the clearest crystal."

It must have been the shock of it all, that Dean suddenly felt woozy and his head started to spin. Clearly his weird shit-o-meter had reached full capacity and was heading into overdrive.

But instead of fighting it, he checked out.

Dean woke to Sam slapping at his socked feet. His brother crossed his arms and stood himself at the foot of the bed. He had that particular irritated frown on his face, the familiar creases popping up between his brows.

"Think you can stay awake long enough to go over the game plan with me? You were gonna meet me over at the diner nearly two hours ago, but I promise I won't hold it against you."

Hauling himself upright, Dean ran a hand through his hair and froze when recent events come screaming back to him. He tried to be subtle about taking stock of his appearance, though he wasn't sure how successful it was. He found himself to be completely dressed, however, and the rumpled state of his clothing was easily explained away by the 'nap' he'd apparently just taken.

His eloquent reply barely sounded like English, and not even close to the 'fuck off' he intended it to be.

"If you're not feeling up to it yet, you should've just said so," Sam said with a resigned shrug of his shoulders, "You still look a bit like the living dead, y'know? Oh, and there's a bed with your name on it. Right _there_ , in case you've forgotten."

"Ugh, sorry," he mumbled, glancing across to the second queen in the room. The one with all his stuff on it. Sure they'd been sharing Sam's bed during the night, but his brother could be fussy like that – bed-making being part of the morning routine and all that.

"Yeah, sure. Brought you some take-out, by the way."

Dean looked up at that and found Sam pointing to a paper bag on the writing desk by the TV. Kicking his feet onto the floor he pushed himself upright, only to feel the sudden rush of blood through his body, and Sam's chest smashing against his face as he caught him from under his armpits.

"Whoa there, buddy."

Then he was sat back on the bed again, and Sam's puppy-dog face looked up at him from where he knelt on the carpet.

"You sick or something? I've got painkillers in—"

"No, no, I'm just feeling-" _like I've had a creepy demon-thing sucking out all my energy while it fucked me_ , "-a bit weird. Nothin' to worry about."

Sam didn't believe him for a second, that wasn't hard to see, but he said nothing as he helped Dean back to his feet and kept him steady as they relocated to the table. Despite his dizzy spell, Dean ripped open the paper bag with gusto and dug into his cheeseburger and fries without hesitation. Juice dripped down his chin and grease coated his hands and fingers, but he savoured each bite like it was the greatest burger he'd ever eaten – and after a year of boiled water and werewolf jerky it wasn't far off.

He was licking his fingers clean when he glanced up to find Sam staring at him, a strange look on his face. There was a loaded pause before he snapped out of it and turned away with a cough, and Dean wasn't not sure what to make of it.

"Didn't think I'd ever see you eat a burger again," was his explanation.

Dean cleaned his hands off with a serviette but made no comment and Sam seemed grateful for it.

They went to bed soon after, Dean turning the lights off before pulling off his clothes and crawling in beside Sam, settling against him. Warm hands tried to coax Dean into something more, but as much as he might have wanted to, Dean couldn't manage to hide the fact that he was simply too out of it to reciprocate, so Sam just held him and let it be.

The next time Dean came awake it was to the beating of brass drums on the inside of his skull. He groaned and pushed his face deeper into the pillow, but eventually couldn't ignore the warm sunlight beating down on the bare skin of his back.

He went rigid, turning his head hesitantly to the side, and found Sam sitting cross-legged on the mattress, the sheets pooled in his lap. His face was blank, expression schooled, and he refused to look Dean in the eye. It didn't take any fancy detective skills to reach the conclusion that Sam _knew_.

"Did you think you'd be able to keep this from me?"

Dean could only whimper in response, unable to reign in enough control over his voice to get words out.

"You woke me up when you started shaking, and at first I'd thought you were just cold or feverish. But then my gut instincts kicked in. I sat up, pulled the sheet back and there it was."

Pulling his arms under himself, Dean attempted to push himself away. But he was moving too slowly - weak - and Sam only needed to slap a firm hand on his shoulder to keep him in place.

"For a minute I almost had myself convinced that it was just a regular tattoo, that you must have snuck off sometime and got it done without telling me. But I've been through too much not to know better. And if that wasn't enough... Dean, when I touched it, it _moved_. And I know this sounds completely insane but I could feel it _looking_ at me. Seriously, what the fuck kind of shit have you got yourself tangled up with?"

Forcing himself to blink, Dean sensed he was on the verge of hyperventilating. His brother was right in that there was something seriously wrong going on. Probably even more than he realised. Of all the times the Mahr had physically assailed him, he'd never felt like _this_ afterward - sore and tender maybe, tired definitely, but never drained to the point where he could barely move. Whatever it was doing to him, it had escalated without warning and it was slowly breaking him down, piece by piece. It was time for Dean to get over himself and get the god-forsaken thing out of his body.

"Mahr," he breathed, unable to articulate anything further than that. "'s Mahr."

Sam finally looked at him. "A what? Ma? Marr?"

He gave a feeble nod - it was close enough, and if anyone could work it out it would be Sam.

"Alright. I'm gonna find this thing and get it out of you. You're a goddamn bastard, you know that, right?"

Sam had been about to move away when he paused again, his hand shifting as he reached out to touch. It took all Dean's remaining strength to make a grab for his brother's wrist, silently pleading for him to keep away from the infection posing so prettily on his back.

“Won’t let it have you, Sam.”

If there was any reply he didn't hear it, already too far gone into unconsciousness.

"Let's do this."

Sam spread the black paste over Dean's chest, drawing the cleansing symbol that Vera had told him about. He then picked up the photocopy she'd given him, and began to read aloud the words she'd copied down phonetically. There was no guarantee it would work - the spell was merely a strong, but multi-purpose purification spell, helpful with casting out all manner of possessions, hauntings and the like. The problem being, they had no real knowledge of what Dean's 'problem' actually was.

Dean was only half aware of what was going on, Sam's voice nothing more than a rolling hum in the background. He could probably have drifted off again, except that as Sam's words began to grow in volume and speed, something inside him started to feel more and more unpleasant.

The feeling expanded and trickled out through his limbs, right to the tips of his fingers and toes, but it was the pinching in his gut that was the focus of his attention. It had started off as a tickle, but was quickly growing more akin to a cold burn, and the burning sensation soon spread to the surface of his skin - exacerbating that tight, itchy feeling that had never really gone away.

The mantra Sam spoke continued on, and Dean only felt worse. The Mahr was definitely stirring, tossing and turning like a bowling ball bouncing from one side of his stomach to the other, his spine getting crushed in the process. He tried to curl himself over on his side, anything to soothe the hurt, but that was when he noticed the red stains colouring the sheet - his scars were reopening as if they'd never healed.

"Mm... Sam. _Sam_."

The words ceased and the power of the spell dissipated instantly, Dean's body going loose like a puppet with its strings cut. Sam was there a moment later, his face hovering worriedly, and he pulled up the sheets from the mattress, winding them around Dean's body in attempt to soak up the blood.

"Shit, Dean, why is this... This shouldn't..." Sam's voice shook like a leaf, "Cas! Castiel get your ass here right now! Dean's--"

"You called?"

Sam jumped in surprise, letting go of the sheet pulled over Dean's wounds. He was even more surprised to see that the blood didn't appear to still be spreading, and Dean groaned amid the pain and confusion. Though, admittedly, the pain seemed to wake him a little, bringing his mind back to a state of awareness he'd been lacking since the previous night. He turned to the angel, cloaked in his usual trench, looking as if he'd been there all along.

"Cas? Where the hell you been?" Any attempt Dean made to inject his words with an amount of anger were rendered futile. He possessed all the strength of a wet noodle.

"I've been... waylaid. Many of my brothers and sisters are none to happy with my actions of late. There is still great unrest in Heaven because of it." The angel paused, his expression changing ever-so slightly. "But I see you are bleeding and in need of my aid."

"I think it's a little more serious than that," Sam said flatly.

"What sort of serious?"

Sam helped Dean onto his side and pulled aside the sheet just enough to expose his back.

" _This_ kind of serious. It's some kind of sentient tattoo. It even moved when I--"

"An' there's a creature," Dean cut in, pointedly avoiding looking at his brother, "Brown. Tail. Horns."

Castiel stared at the tattoo for a long moment before straightening up again.

"This is most worrisome." His lips pursed, and then a light seemed to flick on behind his eyes. "But I believe we may also have an answer to the greater problem at hand."

"Which problem would that be, 'cause I can think of a few."

"The portals between Purgatory and the Human Realm. There are currently three-hundred and twenty eight of them, and so far none of my attempts to close or block them have proven successful. I have been researching dimensional lore both in Heaven and elsewhere, but I think we may finally have a promising solution."

Dean grunted, drawing their attention. "The suspense in killin' me."

"The portals would not have stayed open without a reason. And Purgatory itself is in some ways a sentient place. As soon as I was sucked in there through the Leviathan, it took only hours before I was being drawn towards a way out. However, the portals would never have lasted past the Leviathan's death had Dean and I not also been taken."

"So even when you came back," Sam hazarded a guess, "they stayed open because Dean was still in there. And then when he did get out, he brought something else out with him."

"Correct."

"Wait, why didn't I get shat out like you did?" Dean could only figure it was some angel versus human-type deal.

"As a human-"

_Bingo._

"-your mind would have been more susceptible to other influences. There exist creatures who can alter the human mind at will. One with enough power could have trapped you there for eternity if it wanted. Had you become corrupted enough, Purgatory might have considered you irrelevant and closed off the portals."

Dean considered that and decided it made perfect sense. He'd often gotten the feeling that he'd been going around in circles, but even when he'd gone to the trouble of laying breadcrumbs just to test out his theory, not once had he ever found his way back. Up until this point he'd been blaming the Leviathan, thinking that as it had followed him it'd been fucking with him too. But now he knew that it was some unknown creature just trying to mess with him for kicks. It didn't make him feel any better about it, though. Probably never would. At the end, there'd just been so many times he'd nearly lost himself. It still sent a shiver up his spine.

"So, then, all we gotta do is get this thing out of Dean and kick it back through one of the portals, right?"

Cas frowned. "Yes."

"Yes?"

"But. It may not be so simple. The creature within Dean, I believe to be more than an average demon hitching a ride in his body."

"It's a Mahr."

Castiel stared at Dean until he thought he might break under the weight of it. "It told you this."

"It told me plenty. Always does. Can't shut him up sometimes."

"It talks to you?" Sam shrieked, his voice rising in pitch, "And it's a 'he'? What the fuck, Dean!"

"I agree. This is very troubling."

Dean shifted uncomfortably. "So, now what?"

"Dean, Mahr's are very old creatures. Heaven banished them centuries ago when they proved themselves too troublesome to deal with, though there were some left behind if they'd already shown they could control their hunger. More recent incarnations only feed on dreams, but the ancient ones feed on the pain and suffering contained by the human soul. This makes them very strong, and they have great power over the mind."

He couldn't stop the half-sob, half-laugh that bubbled up from his throat. He probably should have seen that coming. Of course he would be the one to attract something as rare and freaky as that, and the fact that it fed on damaged human souls? He must've been like a bright, shiny new beacon down there in Purgatory, just waiting to be pounced on. And it was no wonder the Mahr had called him 'tasty' when he had literal decades worth of suffering to offer.

On top of that, he now had to consider that _it_ had been the one fucking with his mind, which meant that it had been stalking Dean for weeks before it had come upon the opportunity to approach him. His cursed his own gullibility. The Mahr had been playing him from the get go, so what else had it led him to believe that was all smoke and mirrors?

"How do we get it out?"

"I'm going to need to touch your soul to see how badly it is damaged."

Sam sighed, no doubt reliving his own experience. It couldn't be easy for him.

"Just do it already," Dean spat.

Kneeling at his side, Castiel held him down with his left hand on Dean's middle and his right hovering somewhere above his heart. He pressed his fingers slowly down, and Dean was suddenly awash with pure, exquisite pain, every single molecule of his being in agony. And then it was gone again. Flicked off like a light switch.

"It is as expected. You have a soul parasite - this is the form in which the Mahr usually attaches itself to its human host. It takes its time entering the body, but once it is inside it fuses with your soul until its drained dry and then it moves to another host."

"Can you get it out?"

Castiel shook his head regretfully. "Not without causing great damage. It's very deeply attached to you."

Sam slumped down on the edge of the mattress. "We don't have a choice, though."

"No, we don't." Castiel paused as he contemplated. "Dean, were you injured when it approached you?"

"Yeah, fatally. The healing was part of the deal."

"As with what you saw earlier, once the Mahr is removed, your body will revert to whatever state it was in when it entered. "

"...Son of a _bitch_."

"Dean?" Sam leaned over him, looking massive as Dean stared up at him from the bed.

"Wha--?"

"Was it necessary for you to knock him out?"

Sam shrugged. "Probably for the best."

Between them both they lugged Dean's dead weight towards the rip Castiel had found - one that seemed to suck things in rather than spit them out. They got as close to it as they dared before laying Dean down on the ground and Sam laid down at his side, holding his brother against him.

"You sure this is going to work?"

Castiel's chin tilted in thought. "No. But I've learnt that when it comes to you and Dean, nothing is for certain."

Sam braced himself as he watched Castiel dig deep into Dean's soul, the bright blue light of it glowing around his hand. He seemed to rummage around for several long moments before he pulled back with a cry - a sloppy black mess made of dozens of wriggling tendrils attached to his hand. Castiel hissed and flung the mass to the ground, and Sam watched in horror as it grew and transformed, taking the shape of some kind of troll. It was as Dean had described it - brown and leathery, with a long curling tail and horns that looked like tree branches.

It stumbled, clearly weak, and before it could move another inch Sam was suddenly on his feet again, coming up behind the beast, and all but throwing it back into the rip.

There came an almighty roar as the Mahr was swallowed up, like the screeching of brakes on a speeding train, and the portal winked out of existence as if it had never been there in the first place.

"Sam."

Turning back, Sam was confronted with the sight of his dying brother, covered head to toe in bruises and bloody wounds. He leapt back down to his side, pressing their bodies together, and waited for Castiel to get started.

Rolling his sleeves right the way back, Castiel instantly thrust his arm through the entirety of Dean's chest and then straight on into Sam's. The pain of having the angel's hand on his soul again slammed into him like a semi, and he struggled to draw breath as Castiel slowly withdrew, taking a piece of his soul with him.

A small hollowness opened up in his heart, leaving him with the sensation of a stone sitting right there in its core. But the moment Castiel affixed the small piece into the tatters of Dean's own soul he felt the heavy space fill instantly with lightness. With something all new, and yet not new at all.

Dean groaned with pain and pressed his face into the curve of Sam's neck, breathing in deep.

"Hey, Sammy," he said, his voice shredded and weak as if he'd been screaming.

"Hey, Dean. The Mahr's gone now, and the rips are all closed. World is saved. Sky's still blue."

"Wha'bout my soul? Cas fix it?"

Sam smiled to himself. "Something like that."

\---{[\\]}---

END


End file.
